Lawyers said Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Studios ‘did everything they could’ to avoid paying the young woman’s medical bills

A young woman who was left with a permanent brain injury while working as an extra on the movie Transformers 3 received an $18.5 million settlement today.

Gabriella Cedillo, then 24, was airlifted to hospital after being hit in the head as she drove a car during a stunt in September 2010.

A cable under tension snapped and smashed through the windshield of the Toyota driven by Miss Cedillo on location in Hammond, Indiana.

The young woman was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital and underwent emergency surgery for serious head injuries. The 26-year-old suffered irreversible damage following the incident.

Her attorneys said a ‘completely inadequate superficial weld had been applied in a failed effort to secure the bracket to the [stunt] car’ according to NBC.

Miss Cedillo’s lawyers added that Paramount Pictures and DreamWork’s Studios did everything they could avoid paying their employee’s medical bills and had brought several lawsuit to avoid paying the young woman compensation, according to NBC.

A Cook County judge approved the multi-million dollar settlement today.

At the time of the accident in 2010, a witness said: ‘The cable snapped, and the cable went into the westbound lane where we were at and hit the girl’s car, smashed the windshield.

‘From the way it looked, I don’t know if she was knocked out immediately or not but the… vehicle just went, it just kept going.’

Ms Cedillo was not a stuntwoman but simply an extra in the blockbuster film.

On that particularly fateful day of shooting, she was one of the extras who opted to driver her own car, a 2006 Toyota sedan, during a freeway scene.

‘We weren’t trained stunt people,’ an on-set source told RadarOnline.

‘They paid regular extras to use their own personal cars an extra $25 per day for that freeway scene.

‘We were never informed of the risk we were putting ourselves in and when you take into consideration the amount you are being paid to be there, it’s not worth it.’

Ms Cedillo’s brother told the local NBC affiliate that his sister worked as a bank teller at the time of the incident, but she took on extra roles in an effort to break into the film industry.

‘This was not her first time as an extra,’ her brother Adam said, without expanding into what other films his sister had appeared in.

Gabriella Cedillo. A cable swung through Cedillo’s windshield on the set of Transformers 3 in 2010 in Indiana. Story Credit: Daily Mail Reporter via NBC Chicago

Irreversible: Gabriella Cedillo, 26, was left with a permanent brain injury following the incident on the movie set. Story Credit: Daily Reporter / Photo Credit:Gabriella Cedillo Facebook

Gabriella Cedillo. Horrific: The end of the cable which smashed at high-sopeed through the woman’s windscreen. The movie studios were said to have been reticent to pay for the young woman’s medical bills. Story Credit: Daily Mail / Photo Credit: Daily Mail via NBC

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